Playing 2k Dark Eldar tomorrow, need strategic advice

[Helias_Tancred]

Hail Brothers,

 

I've recently returned home from playing a codex chapter (Crimson Fists) for a good year. The strategic re-adjustment is still a struggle. I'm playing a friend tomorrow, he fields Dark Eldar. It is a 2k game. I lost to him last time, I do not want to repeat that! lol.

 

Here is what I have to work with:

 

Captain Karlaen

Captain Tycho

Generic Captain (relic plasma pistol and power fist)

Dante

Astorath

Librarian in terminator armor

Chaplain with JP and inferno pistol

Sanguinary Priest with JP

 

5 man terminator assault squad/ hammers and shields

5 man terminator squad/ assault cannon

10 man sternguard/ combi-melta x5, power fist x1

5 Sanguinary guard/ axe x1, poweer fist x1, inferno pistol x1, plasma pistol x1, banner option

10 Death Company/ power first x2, inferno pistol x2, power sword x1

Command Squad/ power fist x1, melta gun x1, power sword x3, inferno pistol x2

Furioso Dreadnought/ heavy flamer, melta gun, blood fist x2

Death Company Dreadnought Cassor the Damned/ melta gun, stormbolter, blood talons x2

 

10 man tactical squad x2/ heavy flamer, flamer, combi-flamer

10 man tactical squad/ heavy bolter, plasma gun, combi-plasma

 

5 man JP assault squad x2/ melta gun x2, inferno pistol x2

 

10 man devastator squad/ missile launcher x4, hand-flamer

10 man devastator squad/ plasma cannon x4, combi-flamer

 

Land Raider Crusader

Stormraven/ MM, PC, Hurricane bolter sponsons

Baal Predator/ TL AC, HB sponsons, HK missile

Rhino APC

5 Drop Pods

 

 

 

[Charlo]

Okay so you really want to be a total bastard?

 

Allow me to introduce you to the ultimate anti-dark Eldar weapon:

 

 

Shield of Cretacia: Regular old Power Armour that makes them immune to the poisoned rule, which means enemies have to wound on strength which for many poisoned weapons is 1 or nothing. Good for trolling Dark Eldar. Cheap as chips too at only a 5 point upgrade

 

A Relic available to anyone using a Flesh Tearer's detatchment (which you should probably for some of your force).

 

Enjoy as your lone dude tanks a LOT of splinter weaponry :D

 

 

Otherwise, flamers are your friends. Flame his raiders - oh look he just took a hit on the transport and D6 (I think) hits on the guys inside!

[Chaplain Gunzhard]

In my experience against DE, he'll deep strike a lot of haywire troops that will make compost out of all your armour if you don't deal with them first; your Baal Pred will shred them if it isn't killed first, you could even charge them with regular tacticals and they'll go down easily; just make sure they're tied up or dead.

 

Then everything else you can weather fairly well and the DE skimmers will fall to bolters.

 

They are fast and will assault you first in places just make sure you are thinking 'counter-strike' and have units ready to jump in.

[Xenith]

Remember the No Escape rule for templates, you can kill their troops even when theyre inside a transport.

 

If you had a fragioso, I'f suggest dropping it next to the raider with their HQ in. 2 frag cannon + 1 heavy flamer is 3D6 autohits on the units inside, 2d6 of which are instant death so ignore their FNP, and 1d6 ignore their armour.

 

If not, a triple/quad flamer squad will also work.

[mandaloriano]

I only could think about flamers, heavy flamers and more hand flamers. (Tacticals or assault squad)

Also Furioso Dreadnoughts with Frag Cannon and H. Flamers (I always use them in a drop pod against this kind of armies).

[Helias_Tancred]

Oh yeah, I have the frag cannon arm for my Furioso :)

[Helias_Tancred]

I'm bringing:

 

All three tactical squads. 2 in pods, one in the Rhino.

One 5 man melta assault squad.

Furioso dreadnought with frag cannon in a pod

Death Company dreadnought in a pod

10 man death company with the jump pack chaplain leading them

10 man ML devastator squad

Baal Predator

Captain Karlaen as the Warlord, and I'm having him deep strike in next to the dreads on round 2

[ServoBadger]

I also play Dark Eldar. A Fragioso podding in next to your opponents transports is definitely going to hurt. :)

 

Just some thoughts based on what my former wolfy opponent used to do to beat me:

 

Deny your opponent first blood if you can. If your opponent is fielding massed poison (multiple Venoms, gunboat Raiders) then don't expose any small units if you can help it. I usually run five Venoms, 60 poison shots go a long way to wiping out a small unit.

 

If your opponent is using Ravagers for anti tank, make sure you shoot something at them. It's hard to resist jinking and then they'll be snap firing. Once a Ravager has jinked you might want to move on to another target rather than finish it off then and there. You'll get another go at it before it can fire with full BS again.

 

If you can pod in near your opponents vehicles with some tough units and force some jinking to reduce the effectiveness of any return fire, they may choose to move away at high speed - Dark Eldar can really cover some distance flat out. Make sure that wherever they end up, you can get more shots on them with the missile launchers or the Baal, to force yet more jinking.

 

If you're successful in getting rid of your opponent's anti tank, don't be too eager to get out of transports. All the poison in the world can't scratch a Rhino.

 

Be very careful with Karlaen, particularly if you're not going to join a squad with him and if there are Venoms on the table. They have a big threat range and put out a lot of shots. Even with a Terminator save he'd be a priority target for me if I had Venoms left and he was alone.

 

I'd be interested to know what your opponent fields and how you get on!

[CaptainHelion]

Okay so you really want to be a total bastard?

 

Allow me to introduce you to the ultimate anti-dark Eldar weapon:

 

 

 

Shield of Cretacia: Regular old Power Armour that makes them immune to the poisoned rule, which means enemies have to wound on strength which for many poisoned weapons is 1 or nothing. Good for trolling Dark Eldar. Cheap as chips too at only a 5 point upgrade

 

 

A Relic available to anyone using a Flesh Tearer's detatchment (which you should probably for some of your force).

 

Enjoy as your lone dude tanks a LOT of splinter weaponry :D

 

 

Otherwise, flamers are your friends. Flame his raiders - oh look he just took a hit on the transport and D6 (I think) hits on the guys inside!

Not useful right now, but if you put this lad on a bike, he's completely immune to DE poison as S1 can't even hurt T5

[Helias_Tancred]

BATREP:

 

The Sons of Baal were victorious! In the end the Dark Eldar warband decided to cut its losses and retreat back into the Webway! Blood Angel Victory!

 

 

Wow, what a tough fight! My opponent brought a "Cabalite" sort of Dark Eldar army. He had tons of Str 8 AP 2 weapons. Very nasty stuff. Although I won, it was a very hard fought victory. I lost my devastator squad, my 5 man melta assault squad, pretty much 2 of my 3 tactical squads, my Furioso dreadnought, Captain Karlaen (Void Bomber), and my JP Chaplain (STR 8 AP 2 weapons!).

 

My Most Valuable Player, again, was my Baal Predator w/ TL AC and HB sponsons. This is turning out to be a very nice unit! Use them smartly and they can really apply the pressure. I use mine as a support fire role.  My 10 man DC was shot to pieces by the time I got them into melee, but those that remained wrecked stuff! 

 

Looking back, I'm going to start using my Librarian in terminator armor independent character more often, and I'm going to get Mephiston. Added psyker ability would have made this an easier victory. I'm also looking to buy, build, and run a 3 land speeder unit for my Blood Angels like I did my Crimson Fists. The configuration will be the same, Typhoon variant providing solid mobile fire support. I'm also toying with the idea of running a small allied Raven Guard force (Shadowstrike Kill Team Formation: 2 scout squads, and 2 vanguard vet squads) from time to time with my Blood Angels as additional cheese punch (they charge when they deep strike in, no roll for when either).

 

So far I'm 1-2 since coming back to my Blood Angels. It really is a learning curve going from a Codex Chapter that had tons of goodies and little in the way of specialized units, to Blood Angels which have less in terms of goodies, but rely more heavily on specialized units (DC and Sanguinary Guard) to do their heavy lifting.

Also going from shooty to assault is a change too. Still adjusting.

[Helias_Tancred]

Also my previous match was against the same fella and his Dark Eldar. That game was a disaster as the dice Gods were fickle, and his Cabalite styled force literally shot me off the table! So its an even sweeter victory that I beat him this second time playing.

[CaptainHelion]

Well done on the win! Sounds like it was hard fought, and all the sweeter for it!

[Teetengee]

Are you using the faq yet with the jink-affects-passengers rule?

[Helias_Tancred]

Are you using the faq yet with the jink-affects-passengers rule?

 

Not to my knowledge? I would love to hear about it.

[ServoBadger]

Previously the common wisdom among Dark Eldar players was that if their transport jinked, the passengers could still fire with their full BS. The draft FAQ from GW changes this so that passengers have to fire snap shots as well, even if they disembark.

[Dont-Be-Haten]

Previously the common wisdom among Dark Eldar players was that if their transport jinked, the passengers could still fire with their full BS. The draft FAQ from GW changes this so that passengers have to fire snap shots as well, even if they disembark.

You get around this now with the area terrain rule that they also ruled on. So now a DE player just has to sit in Area terrain and gain an Auto 5+ or 4+ depending on terrain. With certain upgrades even a 3+ without jinking, with the exception of not being hit by templates.

 

Glad to see the game is played. I just now really got around to this. But in the future, depending on which DE you're playing you'll be dealing with different things. If you're to be facing Venom Spam with 3 triple dark lance equipped ravagers, which is the best list for DE imo, then you want to deep strike in and focus fire the ravagers first. Your opponent will more than likely have a blaster born squad in a raider, or an Archon with blaster followed by some chronos pain engines with heat lances and Haywire Blasters to deal with your armor.

 

IF they go raider spam, you'll still have more Haywire Blaster scourges to deal with, but you will also see devastator cannons which are Heavy 3 strength 5 AP2 which is really awesome now they can sit in area terrain, but each raider only has 1 gun. It will make short work of your TEQs though for sure. They will also take reapers with caltrops and I can not stress enough how dirty those jet bikes are with 2 D6 Strength 6 rending HoW hits are, and also having hit and run. My best advice is if your opponent plays traditional Dark Eldar list one of these two will be the most likely list seen. So depending on which; I would bubble wrap what I needed to, or reserve the things I didn't want to risk getting web way portal'd turn 1. If you play more mech heavy then the scourges and Ravagers should be your target priority, if you play more infantry heavy, alpha strike drop pods with heavy flamers and furioso dreads are your friend. TEQs will take too many poison shots against venom spam, and WILL fail several saves. The first time you have a TDA squad take 30+ wounds in 1 round you'll know what I'm talking about lol.

 

Best thing is experience though. I play against a lot of DE as well as owning them, so I know their tactics fairly well, if I were to play bugs though, I wouldn't be much help as I don't have much experience there. So the best way is to throw down with your boys in red!

[Helias_Tancred]

Actually yes we played with the updated rule.